Glass Hearts
by ReachForTheSky
Summary: Shattered, stained, distorted, splintered. This is the destruction left in the wake of Sayaka Miki's death.


_Shattered, stained, distorted, splintered. This is the destruction left in the wake of Sayaka Miki's death._

***SPOILER* This takes place after Madoka becomes a goddess and kills Sayaka in order to keep Kyousuke playing the violin. It has a section for every character and Sayaka's in every section, but Kyoko's section is at the end, so I'm afraid you'll either have to read it or skip until the end if that's what you're here for. :)**

* * *

><p>I<p>

Sayaka has slept over at Madoka's place countless times, so many that she knows Madoka's house like her own. But this time is different.

When she walks in, Madoka's mother isn't there with her tired after-work smile that somehow manages to tell her a thousand little phrases. _Hello, how are you, dear, I'm so glad you've come here tonight, I'm so glad that you're my daughter's friend, I'm so glad that you're here for my daughter, I'm so glad. Welcome home._

Neither is her dad, with all of his thousands of words and mugs of hot chocolate and busy busy busy _is there anything you want anything you need have a good time and the baby is asleep so please don't be too loud but you still better have a ton of fun! - And don't sleep too late._

Ironic, wasn't it, that every time he said that they would never fail to stay up later than before, talking and laughing and gossiping - yes, gossiping, even Madoka - and fall asleep sometime between midnight and sunrise in a heap of smiles and happiness. Madoka's mother would always be there in the morning with gentle words to wake them. They'd open their eyes and see her early-morning smile that said absolutely nothing. It was just simplicity and good morning greetings.

Sometimes, as they whispered to each other long after the sun had set, Sayaka would feel little pangs of guilt for not having Hitomi with them, not having her kind smile and tinkering laugh like wind chimes on a spring morning. But those feelings were washed away sooner or later by the sheer joy she and Madoka shared. This was their time. Other people could wait.

Now, as Sayaka walks up the ominously creaking stairs (they always creak like that, spurring late-night stories about ghosts under the staircase and whatnot) she wishes for Madoka's mother's thousand-word smile and her father's thousand-word sentences, and she almost, _almost, _wishes for Hitomi. But something has happened between them, though she can't place her finger on exactly what, and she doesn't treasure the green-haired girl as a friend anymore.

She can't bring herself to speak as she opens the familiar pink-painted door - Madoka had always loved that ridiculous color, perhaps it was her hair that started it - and places long, unbecomingly skinny fingers on the doorknob.

She finally finds the courage to open the door, and, vaguely wondering why she needed courage for such a thing, glances around for her best friend. Best friends is what they are, right? She can't imagine Madoka putting Hitomi over her, but suddenly long black hair and pale skin and eyes Sayaka just can't trust spring to mind. Who is this girl? She thinks she knows her, but there is no name and no face. Only these feelings of distrust.

And Sayaka curses herself for her disloyalty, because she is having memories too - long red hair and toothy smiles and apple cores falling to a church floor. But since this girl has no name and no face, she can't be any closer to her than Madoka.

Madoka. There she is, sitting on the thick pink comforter that is perfect in the winter and unbearable in the summer. She's dressed in odd clothing, a rose-colored dress with fluffiness and frills that could match her every bedroom decoration. There's a bow-and-arrow lying on the floor next to her. How strange.

"Sayaka," she says with a picture-perfect smile. "Sayaka."

And then she bursts into tears.

Sayaka just stands there petrified for a few seconds, because why would she, _Sayaka, _cause Madoka to cry? It's despicable. She must do something about it.

She reaches the bed in a few quick strides, nearly falling on the comforter and putting an awkward yet surely comforting arm around Madoka's shoulders. There are no words needed, she thinks, at least not until Madoka has calmed down and she can ask why.

Despite her fragile appearance, Sayaka's best friend is strong of mind and it takes her but a minute to calm down completely and look face Sayaka with serious eyes. Madoka has something important to say, she can tell, and it sends shivers up her spine to see her normally cheerful friend looking so serious, so _sad._

"Madoka?" she ventures tentatively. "What's wrong?"

She stares at her with wide eyes. "You don't ... you don't remember, do you."

"Well, there are these faces I can't put names to, and such, but - I remember you."

Some aspect of this sentence really touches Madoka, because tears are welling up in her eyes again, not happy ones. Not happy ones at all.

"Sayaka, I - I took away your future."

She frowns. "No, you gave me a future."

Madoka laughs weakly. "By being your friend? That's enough for a future?"

Sayaka nods. It's simple enough for her, but then again, it's not always that she and Madoka see eye-to-eye.

"Well, by being your friend, I also took away your future."

"How?" It's a basic question, but Madoka seems to have trouble contemplating an answer. She sits there for quite a while, to Sayaka at least, toying with the ribbon on her dress and keeping her eyes cast downward.

"I did what I thought was right," she says slowly, after a long, long while, "and perhaps it was what you would have wanted. I took away your future so somebody else could have the future that was stolen from him. But I understand now that you're so much more important to this world, the people in it, to me."

"Is the other person happy?"

Madoka stops fidgeting.

"Y-yes, he's - never mind, I don't want you to know his name. Yes, he's happy. And he remembers you."

"That's alright, then," Sayaka replies. And it is.

"You were always the selfless type," Madoka sighs wistfully. "'The ally of justice', you called yourself -"

"Were?"

Madoka goes white and still, so much so that she resembles a porcelain doll more than a human. Her mouth hangs open, stopped mid-sentence, and her hands clutch the comforter so that it rumples into little folds around her tiny fingers. Her eyes are like shattered glass.

"I'm sorry." Her voice is trembling and nearly impossible to hear. But Sayaka catches every word.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry for everything, I stole it all from you, and it's all my fault, and I'd do anything to change it, but -"

The room begins dissolving and she dimly registers that it was never Madoka's room in the first place. Madoka herself is glowing, highlighted by the infinite whiteness and marked by the tears on her cheeks.

"Sayaka, we can't have sleepovers anymore."

* * *

><p>II<p>

Sayaka can't remember for the life of her who Mami Tomoe is until she opens the door with her name beside it in neatly etched gold letters. Then it all comes rushing at her, kind eyes and smiles and teaching and golden hair the color of those letters and guns and teeth and _the end. _Then a new beginning, for Mami, but not for her.

Like a tidal wave, the whole story comes rushing back at her, all about magical girls and souls and witches and gems turning black and all the pain.

This is how Mami Tomoe finds Sayaka Miki, standing with her knuckles still on the door's oaken surface and looking like someone has just struck her across the face.

"Miki ... ?" she begins, as if she's not sure if it's really her, though there's no mistaking that blue hair and the permanent determination that graces her face even when she's looking like this.

"Miki, you-" Mami stops, seeing the wispy tinge to her figure, the silent way in which she moves and the almost unnoticeable translucency that lets in the sunset behind her seep in like she's stained glass. And she knows that after this, Sayaka will never be coming back, leaving her staggering under the overwhelming weight of her own guilt.

"How are you, Mami?" The words are hollow. "I thought I'd stop by one last time."

Mami seems to be resisting the urge to embrace her, and eventually, she gives in. Sayaka is taken aback by the force of her hug, which pushes them backwards on the porch and causes them to hit the bar railing separating them from free fall.

The terrifying height at which they're looming over the rail snaps Mami back to her senses. She backs off, barely fending off tears and smiling at the same time.

"You look well."

"Thanks. You don't, really."

Conversations between the two were few and far between, seeing as they spent only a few days together and that too was usually in Madoka's company, discussing various aspects of magical girl life. But Sayaka has managed to recall all of her infinite timelines, not just the single one she came from, and she knows that in another life she and Mami have grown closer. In another, they were best friends.

"I'm sorry," says Mami, looking down at her perfect hands that once clutched guns far more than they should have. "It's all my fault."

Sayaka expects this. It's Mami, after all. If there is an opportunity to take the blame, she will take it.

"I don't want you to apologize," she says firmly. "I want you to cherish your life. You have no idea how close you came to having my fate."

Mami studies her carefully. "What do you know?" she asks, meeting her gaze. "What happened after you died?"

Mami is usually unimaginably thoughtful, so the sheer tactlessness of her sentence clobbers Sayaka like a mace. The words _after you died_ had a chilling finality to them, signifying the end of her existence. She was dead, and nothing more.

"I learned some things," Sayaka replies slowly, "which I don't think you'll either know or understand until you join me."

Of course she wasn't going to explain the timelines to Mami, who would be dumbstruck by the real reason why Sayaka died, and the thousands of lives she might have lived - the thousands of lives in which she might have been happy. It breaks Sayaka's heart every time she looks at Mami here, in this existence, because her experiences have pulled her down so far that she can't pull herself back up.

When Mami speaks, her voice is breaking. "All I wanted was for us to be happy."

"Magical girls can't be happy," Sayaka says. "You know that."

"I know very well," she answers, "but it's not like I had a choice."

Sayaka remembers yet another event in the heartbreaking life of Mami Tomoe: She only became a magical girl to save her life. She was forced down the dark path of magical girls, forced to bear all this misfortune.

"But I'm really glad I met you, Sayaka," she whispers, gazing out at the sunset over the railing. "I've been struggling a lot since you died."

_And Madoka, _Sayaka thinks. _But nobody remembers Madoka._

"I need a little more strength to pick myself up and keep going," she confesses. "I can't do anything about my pathetic existence right now. I almost wish I'd died along with you."

"No, you don't," Sayaka says forcefully. "It's just as painful."

She can almost see the apology forming on Mami's lips, but she pushes it back, because she knows 'I'm sorry' is not what she wants to hear right now. Sayaka is grateful to her, and somewhere amidst all the gratefulness she realizes that she can't let this ray of light fall into depression.

"Mami, I know you can live on. I know you can be happy. Come on, please. I only have a little time. Promise you'll get better, for me, okay? Please?" she begs of the blonde, who only looks away.

"What should I do?" she asks shakily. "You're gone. And the others -"

Sayaka cuts her off, because she barely knows who "the others" are and she doesn't want to, at least not until she speaks to them.

"Look, Mami, I'm not a self-help goddess just 'cause I'm dead," she begins harshly. Oddly enough, this hint of her brazen, over-confident self seems to calm Mami down somewhat.

"You are going to fix yourself. You're old enough. You live alone and you've been fine for this long. Why should this thing, this phenomenon called 'death', get to you? I can't say for sure whether or not you'll be alright. But I know you can be."

Mami swallows, emotion burning in every line of her face. "Okay. Okay, Miki. Thanks."

Sayaka knows Mami doesn't mean a word of that. She doesn't believe she can pick up this mess. Sayaka's death was just the straw that broke the camel's back. Everything that's happened so far, all the hardship and pain and death has finally caught up to the always-strong Mami and she's finally crumbled. It was, Sayaka reflects grimly, just a matter of time. But if she can prolong that time, then maybe this visit will have been worth something.

"I want you to try, at least," she pleads. "Don't just give up on yourself."

"How can I?" Mami whispers. "I think I already have given up."

Sayaka wants to grab the older girl and slap some sense into her. Given up? What sort of nonsense was she spouting?

"That's enough!" she explodes. "I'm tired of seeing this girl, this empty shell who calls herself Mami, walking and talking like a robot. Pathetic, that's what it is. Pathetic." The fire in her voice dwindles with every word as Mami offers no response.

"Thanks for visiting," she says after Sayaka's finished her outburst. "Maybe I will be happy again someday. But I don't really think it's worth it."

Sayaka casts a hurried glance at the fast-setting sun. Something tells her she only has until night takes over the sky.

"I can't do anything with this life of mine," Mami says. "I can only live an empty existence. Half-alive."

The moon is rising and the sky is slowly fading from blue to black. Despair rises in her as she wonders what more she can do with only seconds to spare. As Sayaka's body begins to fade into the night, Mami speaks her final words to the dead girl.

"You know, Sayaka, it's really touching to know that you're spending every last second trying to help me. It's - it's nice. Thank you."

"Least I could do," she mutters, wondering desperately if this will be enough, if this last sentence will save Mami from her pit of despair. At the hidden depths of her heart, she knows that it can't be enough in the long run. Mami is past the point of no return. Sayaka can only hope that sometime in the future the older girl will find her strength.

"Mami," Sayaka whispers, "In another life, you were happy."

Then the moon takes over what remnants of twilight there were and her time is up. She leaves Mami standing at the door with the bright porch light illuminating her skin and the distant promise of hope beginning to take shape inside of her tattered soul.

* * *

><p>III<p>

She doesn't know why exactly she's at Homura Akemi's front door or even how she knows that it's the black-haired girl's home. Sayaka has started doing a lot of things on instinct lately. Perhaps it is a side effect of being a ghost.

Homura looks annoyed when she swings open the door, mouth open to complain about the late hour in a monotone. She freezes when she sees Sayaka, but the girl at the door only braces herself for Homura's next words.

"Sayaka … does that mean Madoka's here too?" She's so desperate that Sayaka wants to spit in her face. She'd rather it was someone other than this ice-cold girl that was the only one to remember Madoka.

"Thanks for the welcome," she says dryly. Unfazed, Homura resumes her characteristic stoic behavior and leads Sayaka into her house.

It's large, and Sayaka wonders how a mere girl can afford such a luxurious home. It's spotless in every manner and she can't help but think that this would be a horrible place to have a sleepover.

"Do you have any news of Madoka?" Homura asks stiffly.

"No," Sayaka replies in an equally chilly tone. She should have never come here.

Dark eyes land on her translucent figure. "Are you dead?"

"What do you think? You saw me die."

"I did."

Icy silence follows. Both girls eye each other suspiciously but do not say a word, instead focusing their energies in glaring furiously at one another.

_Madoka,_ Homura's dark gaze seems to say. _That's all I want. _

_I don't care,_ Sayaka's blue eyes retort in their defiant glare. _I can't give you Madoka, and you hate me nonetheless._

"After you died, I found Madoka's ribbons in my hands. Did you have something to do with that?" Homura says abruptly.

Sayaka feels a small prick of triumph. At least there is one thing she knows more about than this girl.

"That was all engineered. Guess who decided to let me die."

"I don't have time for games," she hisses. "Tell me."

"Your favorite Madoka," Sayaka grins, and for a second she can feel the maniacal Sayaka who stabbed witches like they were stuffed animals and grinned all the while.

"She's not that cruel," Homura defends, though fear is creeping into her voice. "She wouldn't do something like that."

"But she did."

Homura didn't need to know that Madoka only killed Sayaka so that Kyousuke would be healed, and that she regretted the decision.

Homura exhaled, whipping around so that her back was turned to Sayaka. "Why are you even here? To tell me such lies?"

Sayaka grits her teeth. "You're insufferable."

"As are you."

"Honestly, I have nothing to say about Madoka except that I just saw her, so -"

"You _WHAT_?"

She smirks, having expected exactly this reaction from the noirette. "Yes, just now. It's one of the privileges of being dead."

"You can see - but -" she splutters, utterly lost for words "Did she say anything?"

"Of course she said something," Sayaka replied casually, twirling her hair. "'I'm really sorry, Sayaka', 'I should have kept you alive.'"

Homura face twists unrecognizably, freezing like distorted glass. "Do you know what she said to me right before she became a magical girl?"

It's Sayaka's turn to stop and stare now; she hadn't expected such an unexpected development.

"'I never realized I had such a precious friend with me all along' … So don't go around boasting like she treasures you the most! Were you the one who lived the same month countless times just to save her? Were you the one who tried to protect her, the one who was there at the very end? No!"

Sayaka is blank.

"So don't you dare call yourself her best friend."

Homura spits out this sentence with a ferocity that only adds to the fatal blow the words have already dealt. Sayaka is frozen as everything sinks in, one reality-shaking lesson after another.

Homura is still braced for an equally scathing retort when Sayaka crumples to the floor.

She can't get up, it's like chains are holding her to the ground, wrapping around her neck and cutting into her skin, and _Homura does nothing to help._

She just stands there, surprised and a little confused as she watches the obnoxious ghost convulse and shake on the floor. Maybe it's because she can't do anything, or perhaps she just doesn't want to, but she makes no move to help Sayaka nonetheless.

When Sayaka finally stands up, her face has been wiped clean of any lingering emotion. "Sorry about that," she says. "I let my emotions get the better of me."

Now it hits Homura, what she's done. All it took was to see her own emotionless self reflected in Sayaka's empty blue eyes to realize the pain this girl is feeling is exactly her own. She remains silent, though, knowing that this was the Sayaka who uncaringly murdered witches and cackled at her bloodstained sword. She wasn't going to put Sayaka's happiness before her safety. No, that place was reserved for Madoka.

Even so, Homura wonders vaguely if there is something she can do. She isn't completely heartless, is she? So then why isn't she moving?

Sayaka tidies herself up, moving like a marionette with some of its strings cut. Brokenly, she offers Homura a smile.

"You saved my life once, remember? Madoka dropped my Soul Gem and you retrieved it. I never thanked you for that."

Homura is speechless.

"You're a really wonderful person. I just was too caught up in being jealous to realize that."

_Shouldn't that be my line?_

Sayaka makes her way to the door, fumbling with the lock for a few seconds before gently pushing it open and stepping outside, calling a few final words over her shoulder.

"Sorry to bother you, Akemi. Thanks for everything."

And she leaves, translucent form blending into the dark night ahead. Homura still hasn't said a word until Sayaka disappears. Then it's like a switch has been turned on, and the words spill from her mouth in a hasty waterfall.

"Wait! . . . I'm sorry."

"Miki? Did you leave?"

"Miki? Miki, come back, I never…"

"...Sayaka, please."

But there is no reply for the girl who spoke too late.

* * *

><p>IV<p>

Kyoko Sakura is her medicine. Sayaka knows that comfort will come with those apple cores and wavy red hair and that smile. It's a remedy. A painkiller. Anesthetic.

Sayaka knows where to find her, despite never having entered her house. The dilapidated church with with broken windows and rotting pews is where Sayaka and Kyoko connected.

Sure enough, she is there, staring out at the black sky and pensively munching an apple. When Sayaka walks silently over, she barely gives a reaction.

"Man, I wish I would stop hallucinating. The memories are bad enough, I don't need to be tricked into thinking you're still there on top of that."

_Kyoko's been hallucinating?_

"No, it's me, Kyoko. For real."

She shoots the ghost a skeptical look. "Yeah right. Now get back in my head before someone hears me talking to myself and I get carted off to a medical hospital."

This is heartbreaking, so much more so than seeing Madoka cry or Mami give up on life. It washes all of Homura's venomous words out of her mind and the only thing left is Kyoko.

_What have I done?_

She steps forward, though it's more like a stumble, and she crashes into Kyoko's arms. Her touch electrifies the redhead, who gasps and knots her fingers around Sayaka's blouse, only to find her fingers slipping through the translucent fabric. But this fleeting touch is enough to convince her.

"It's really you."

"Could you never touch your hallucinations?"

"I never got the chance to."

Sayaka studies her face, devoid of all the youth and recklessness it once carried. Kyoko is a thousand years older, despite there being not a single line on her face.

"I don't have much time," she says quietly. "So tell me whatever's on your mind?"

"If you can't stay, then what's the point?" Kyoko mutters. "You'll leave, and I'll be living in a nightmare again"

"Then I'll pull you out now," she says firmly. "Once and for all."

There's a long silence, and though it's prickly and uncomfortable Sayaka waits. When Kyoko finally speaks, it's not a sorrowful speech like she expected.

"Can you still eat as a ghost - or whatever you are?"

"What?"

Kyoko sighs impatiently. "Dense little girl. I asked if you could eat." As she speaks, she tosses a blood-red apple in her direction. Sayaka catches it uncertainly.

"Stop staring at it like it's poison," Kyoko grumbles. "You know I don't like wasting food."

"How could I forget?" Sayaka laughs and takes a bite. It has no taste, but she enjoys it all the same.

She doesn't know what to do next. Kyoko isn't making it easier; all she does is chat amicably and eat. The weather, some jerk she ran into, the words fall from her lips like Sayaka has never been gone.

"Look, Kyoko," Sayaka breaks in after a couple of minutes, "I honestly don't think I was given a 'last chance' or whatever to hold small talk with you. Shouldn't I be helping you recover or something?"

Kyoko grins. "That's exactly what I'm doing."

Of course this is how Kyoko's dealing with it, by acting normal and brushing it off. For a second, she debates telling her to knock it off, but decides in the end that she could do what she wanted. If Kyoko was okay, then she was fine with it.

"So how was it?" Kyoko asks casually, as if asking how a date went. "Dying, I mean."

"Uh, it hurt, I guess."

She laughs, but it's forced. "Always honest, you are."

Sayaka says nothing - there's no point forcing awkward conversation - but Kyoko is obviously expecting something more.

Eventually, she says, "D'you suppose you'd want company up there?"

It takes a second for Sayaka to register what Kyoko is suggesting. "What - oh. No, absolutely not, Kyoko, don't even think about -"

Kyoko flashes a cheeky grin. "Nah, I wasn't thinking about suicide. You're the only one around here who's that selfless."

Sayaka frowns, not completely believing her. She's accomplished absolutely nothing so far, and it's so frustrating. This is their very last chance to be together, and they're blowing it. She thinks about talking about what really happened when she died, but she can't. Kyoko's already on the verge of imploding.

Watching her, smiling and laughing, trying her best to act normal even though Sayaka can almost see the waves of sadness radiating off her, she feels so utterly useless. Mami was a lost cause, but Kyoko is within reach. She is an arm's length away, if only she can summon up the strength to stretch her fingers the final few centimeters.

Sayaka can't voice her thoughts, as Kyoko would only assure her that she was fine. She is so completely trapped; she has never felt so far apart from the girl who nearly saved her from desperation. Kyoko is locked up behind newly forged bars, a narrow cage that even Sayaka cannot slip into. And if she destroys the bars, they will only smash Kyoko's already fragile self.

That's what she is, Sayaka realizes, fragile. The stronger someone appears, the more they bear with pain, the weaker they are. Tough, unbreakable Kyoko is actually quite weak, and certainly breakable. And Sayaka had broken her.

She is watching Kyoko through a movie screen, surreal and unnatural. Her words are read from a script inside her mind, with false emotion and practiced movements. Is she broken, or is there something still left? She senses a flicker of fire, a spark of left. If she could only rekindle -

"I love you, Sayaka."

The movie screen shatters, and it is just them.

"You are my everything. We gave ourselves up to one another. We saved each other from despair. We fought, we laughed, we cried. And then suddenly that despair was taking over your life - and I tried, Sayaka, I tried. I suppose - it just wasn't enough, was it?"

The words are piling up inside of her, but sound is meaningless at this point.

"Hey. Take my hand one last time."

Sayaka swallows and stumbles forward, not daring to meet Kyoko's eyes, because this will be their last moment - she can feel it, she is fading - and reaches out the last few centimeters.

Kyoko is not broken, not yet, at least. She is splintered glass - cracked, but not yet broken. And by clasping her hand, Sayaka can show her that everything will be alright, that she will heal and not have to act out her life anymore. One day, they will be reunited, and they will embrace like old friends.

As she nears Kyoko's outstretched palm, she ponders myriad concepts, hope and despair and death and happiness. She sees her friend in all of them. They are all one. There was hope still residing inside the supposedly splintered girl.

Sayaka lowers her hand to release the fire in Kyoko's soul. She meets her vibrant red eyes and sends them a message on silver wings. Yet by some cruel trick of Fate, some awful miscalculation, their fingers never meet.

Sayaka disappears into the night without giving her final grace.

The fire, however, blazes at full force.

* * *

><p>V<p>

_They had glass hearts, all of them, and Sayaka had somehow managed to shatter every one._

* * *

><p><strong>Haha, you probably didn't understand any of that. Well, kudos to you if you've gotten this far.<strong>

**Remember that after Madoka became a magical girl, she changed everyone's lives so they would live, but had to keep Sayaka dead so that Kyousuke would be healed? In the last episode, you see the girls minus Madoka kill a witch, but to them, Sayaka was killed in the battle.**

**So basically, Madoka regrets the decision to save Kyousuke, and Mami is guilty for not saving Sayaka. Homura remembers what really happened, so she knows about the whole series, so they talk about stuff that happened in the earlier episodes. **

**Sorry. I tried my best to be clear in the story, but unless you know the series well you probably didn't get it.**

**I have a weird headcanon about Homura and Sayaka hating each other and fighting over Madoka. Sorry if you think of them as friends or ship them. Also, don't ask me what I did to Mami. That's just how she deals with survivor's guilt. Take "I love you" however you want. I'm not sure what I meant myself.**

**So, yeah. If you liked it, drop a review. If you didn't like it, please tell me why. I don't look for praise (well, I do, but that's not my highest priority), I look to improve. This story probably has flaws, and I want to know them.**


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